HPhil Seminar: June 22, 2023

June 22, 2023

The HPhil (History of Philosophy) Research Group of the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon announces the 2022/23 edition of its permanent seminar on the history of philosophy, devoted to the presentation of conferences by renowned specialists while also creating opportunities to emerging scholars, aiming to promote advanced studies in groundbreaking debates and the permanent training of its academic community.

In this session of the seminar, Richard Cross (University of Notre Dame) will present a paper entitled “Dethroning Aquinas: a revised historiography for medieval philosophy” (abstract below).

The session will take place on June 22, 2023 at 5 p.m., in the Room C201.J (Room Mattos Romão, Department of Philosophy). The entrance is free.

Abstract

Standard accounts of the history of medieval philosophy take Aquinas as their focus, making the normative assumption that Aquinas was the central figure in the philosophical dialectic. This talk argues that, at least in the domain of metaphysics, very few philosophers, even among Aquinas confreres in the Dominican order, accepted Aquinas’s central insights about universals and the distinction between essence and existence. Aquinas remained a marginal figure at least until the middle of the fifteenth century.